Project 52: Week 51

Our reflection and meditation for quieting moments ...

"Innovation is about bringing people together, fostering connections, and inspiring collaboration."

~ Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman, The Ten Faces of Innovation, IDEO's Strategies for Beating the Devil's Advocate & Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization

[Doyle's note: This is a terrific read and framework for understanding and building stronger teams within your organization or communities.]

GENEROSITY.

"In many world religions, the spiritual grounding of education, both in its institutional and individual forms, is the idea that education itself is an act of generosity."

"From their earliest moments, educational systems within different spiritual traditions depended on generosity and integrated it conceptually into the very idea of an institution."

"Generosity is perceived as a deeply personal virtue involving personal motives and a person's spiritual state. It is not understood as the product of careful thinking by humans working within a system. But I want to ask a challenging question about this twenty-first-century condition: what if, in our collective institutional deliberations in higher education, we could discuss with generous motives and arrive at generous conclusions?"

~ Dr. Laurie L. Patton: Currently the President of Middlebury College has been named the next President of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Patton is a distinguished scholar of religion, an author or editor of ten books, a published poet, and a highly accomplished college and university leader. She will begin as the Academy’s President in January 2025.

We are delighted to continue with a year-long offering as part of Career Services initiatives and outreach. ~ Gerald Doyle

Project 52: Week 51

WELCOME to Interviews

“Transactional Interviews,” as opposed to informational interviews or Conversations of Inquiry, are almost always a stage in any journey to agreement on a new career role. The transactional nature of the meeting can put pressure on all parties: someone needs to fill a role, and someone needs to find one. Nevertheless, it is possible to handle these meetings effectively and to the job-seeker's advantage to deliver value, creativity, and service to both the candidate and the larger systems. In general, the job-seeker’s goal in a transactional interview is to gain an offer of employment or engagement or move in that direction in the recruiting process. A parallel goal can be to assess the attractiveness and fit of the proposed role as a step in the seeker’s career journey.

We highly recommend Steve Dalton's book The Job Closer in its entire treatment of the interviewing journey (part 2, Chapters 5-7). What follows is a summary as a taster for a full review.

Dalton observes that most interviews begin with small talk. He notes that this part of the encounter helps build rapport, and he cites data that most interviewers make up their minds about recommending or declining a candidate in the early minutes of an interview.

Accordingly, he recommends supplying some information here that can build a bridge to the interviewer on a personal level rather than launching too early into a sales pitch. References on the resume/CV to personal interests can be the foundation for this phase of the conversation, as can following up on questions from either side along the lines of “How has your day gone so far?”

Dalton observes that four questions are featured in a great many interviews.  He calls these the Big Four. They are

• Tell me about yourself. (TMAY for short), or a variation: Take me through your CV
• Why are you interested in this role?
• Why are you interested in our company?
• Why are you interested in this industry?

For TMAY questions, Dalton recommends telling key stories from your life and experience in the format “FIT”: FIT stands for Favourite Part, Insight, and Transition.  He suggests telling stories as FIT segments, linking from one career or educational phase to another up to the present day.  He suggests limiting answers to questions to two minutes in all cases: his “ two-minute rule.”  So, the answer to TMAY questions should link together a series of what seems to be helpful and valuable FIT segments that will fit into two minutes.

For the other three questions in the Big Four, the why questions, Dalton suggests using a Reason, Anecdote, Connection (RAC) format:

• What is the Reason for your interest,
• An anecdote to demonstrate the value created along that dimension,
• and a Connection statement that links the anecdote experience to the reason for interest.

After the Big Four, Dalton suggests interviews may shift focus to “behavioral questions”:  “Tell me about a time when…. “ Here, the candidate can demonstrate skills and capacities crucial for the relevant job. Dalton recommends answering this kind of question in the format of Challenge/Action/Result (CAR) and strongly recommends preparing in advance (valid for most if not all interviews) a matrix of 10-15 career or life situations for which you have understood and can articulate your CAR stories and responses.

• What was the Challenge you faced?
• What Actions did you take in response?
• What Results did you achieve?

Dalton observes that some interviewers ask challenging questions about difficult moments, failures, or weaknesses. He explains how, with some preparatory thought, we can use the candidate's CAR matrix to provide material to respond to these challenges. We demonstrate how positive action, documented as a CAR instance, emerges as a response to a setback or challenge.

Finally, Dalton notes that interviews often end with a section where the interviewee is invited to ask questions of the interviewer. As we do, he suggests that interviewees prepare a good selection of questions in advance, certainly covering points you want to know more about regarding the role and the organization, but also demonstrating thoughtfulness, preparation, and genuine interest in the role, the organization, and the industry.  The questions you prepare should be of legitimate interest … and … should be designed to engage the interviewer and allow them to emerge as the expert on the topic, not to stump them or show off our knowledge of the relevant sector.  We invite participants to prepare a good list of questions so that in the rare event that the interviewer opens up a long segment of the interview for interviewee questions, there will be no gap or sense of awkwardness about the interviewee taking full advantage of this opportunity. Steve Dalton invites using his TIARA framework (listen to the 8-minute +/- clip from Dalton)

... ALSO, a key feature of his recommendations for informational interviews, to develop potential questions:

• Ask about trends in the industry as seen by the interviewer
• Ask about insights from business experience
• Ask about crucial advice the interviewer would give the interviewee about advancing on the relevant career track, in this case, including the relevant role-decision process.
• Ask about resources the interviewee could access; refer the interviewee for additional learning and insight.
• Ask what assignments you would expect someone to perform in the first x months on the job.

The TIARA Framework

1. TRENDS
2. INSIGHTS
3. ADVICE
4. REFER
5. ASSIGNMENTS

As one essential element in the section on questions from the interviewee, Dalton insists we always make sure to understand the next steps in the recruitment process and their timing so that the interviewee can always follow up in a timely and appropriate way and can also close the interview on a solid note, expressing interest (where applicable) and committing to follow-up and subsequent actions.

Dalton suggests that they be prepared according to these principles, and we agree that they should cover 99%+ of the questions and points that candidates are likely to encounter in interviews. This preparation will leave the interviewee well-prepared to go beyond basic questions and their variants. It may still lead to the interviewee being more prepared and on solid footing than the interviewer.

Consistent with his other writings, Dalton suggests that following up on an interview conversation within a very short timescale, usually one day, is indispensable. Please see separate articles in this series for material on follow-ups and reaching a final agreement on career engagements.

As ever, I am at your service to accompany you and help you, through a lens of prayer, discernment, and accompaniment, to navigate your interwoven journeys of career, ministry, formation, inspiration, and learning

and keen to accompany you in preparing your interviewing strategy and resources, both broadly and specifically, as with all other aspects of your career journey.

Peace, blessings, friendship, hope -- and Thanksgiving.

Monday, 11 November 2024

Gerald Doyle, Career Services

Additional Resources:

Center for Social Concerns About the Institute, learn more.

"Welcome to the Institute for Social Concerns, an interdisciplinary institute dedicated to justice education and research for the common good with communities near and far."

Virtues & Vocations, Higher Education for Human Flourishing

Generosity: Fall 2024 (Read the entire issue online including Dr. Laurie Patton's article, Generosity in Everyday Academic Life )

And recommended listening

from a podcast with Laurie L. Patton; here's a worthwhile interview with the authors (30 minutes +/-)

Dr. Laurie L. Patton, President of Middlebury College, talks about why interfaith relations even matter and perhaps more importantly, HOW they can work.

She's a poet and writer with a warm, personal style you'll enjoy as she recounts her journey from Unitarianism to learning Sanskrit and going on pilgrimage in India, to finding her home in Judaism.

Residing in Chicago, Gerald Doyle provides ministry placement research and consulting for Career Services at the Catholic Theological Union and career services and coaching to students, families, and community members at Wolcott College Preparatory High School. He advises several edtech companies, including Upkey and GetSet Learning, and serves as the Interim Chief Administrative Officer at the US-China Catholic Association and as president of the board at Syrian Community Network

Scott  Downs, a former investment banker, management consultant, and entrepreneur, now works as an Agile coach, seeking to call forward great leaders and organizations based on great cultures. He is a consultant with Expleo Group and is an associate of the TrustTemenos Leadership Academy.

Scott and Gerald are co-founders of Tri Cosain, a practice that weaves inspiration, learning, and career for leadership in life and work. Gerald and Scott co-authored 9 Questions for Leadership in Life and Work, Conversations of Inquiry, and several other volumes in the Tri Cosain series. Their work embraces equity, inclusion, diversity, and well-being as foundations for personal leadership.

Copyright Scott Downs and Gerald Doyle 2023-25